Gentrification, job loss, school woes fuel community unrest

1of4Protesters celebrate after occupying the Oakland city council chamber in support of affordable housing and against police brutality on May 5, 2015.Photo: Sam Wolson, Special to the Chronicle

2of4Protesters celebrate after occupying the Oakland city council chamber in support of affordable housing and against police brutality on May 5, 2015.Photo: Sam Wolson, Special to the Chronicle

3of4Protesters hold a “People’s Council” after taking over the Oakland City Council chambers Tuesday night.Photo: Sam Wolson / Special to the Chronicle

4of4Protesters occupy the Oakland city council chamber in support of affordable housing and against police brutality on May 5, 2015. Protesters took over a city council meeting and continued to occupy the space following the meeting.Photo: Sam Wolson / Special to the Chronicle

It’s no wonder that last week’s takeover of the Oakland City Council chambers by protesters appeared so confused.

Activists didn’t show up to make a single demand, they showed up with a laundry list of them: End police killings of unarmed black men, end gentrification, end racial discrimination.

History, it seems, is repeating itself.

In the 1960s, police brutality and racial discrimination were the catalysts that sparked nationwide unrest, prompted mass demonstrations and compelled drastic and necessary changes in the nation’s standards for justice and fairness under the law.

Now, 50 years later, police actions and inherent racial animosities are again the prime culprits for protests. And there are a host of underlying causes that make those issues seem like the tip of the iceberg.

Increased demand for middle- and upper-class urban housing, or gentrification, is dislodging lower-income families that have resided in urban neighborhoods for generations.

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U.S. census data from 2010 showed that 1 in 4 African American residents moved out of Oakland, and since then we’ve seen increasing construction of new market-rate housing and skyrocketing San Francisco and Oakland housing prices.

The long-term loss of blue-collar industrial jobs has had a cumulative effect on urban populations including Oakland, and has whittled down the number of working-class residents. It’s widened the economic gap between the rich and poor — and cast doubts on fulfilling the American ideal of middle-class life. The loss of the middle class can be seen and felt daily on the nation’s urban streets.

The poor performance of urban school districts has left young people either ill-equipped to advance their educational pursuits or without marketable skills in the workplace.

And, as schools try to even the playing field — by making sure every student who graduates from high school has met the requirements to enter college, too many students are apparently discouraged by the tougher standards and drop out.

For example, data on San Francisco schools released by the state recently revealed increases in the dropout rates for black and Latino students after the district imposed tougher academic standards.

Additionally, the breakdown of family structures, aided in the lower-income African American community by government welfare policies that require men to leave families in order for the families to receive benefits, has also hurt low-income families.

At the same time, good blue-collar jobs and middle-class housing opportunities are diminishing, a new class of young Americans, the techies, has emerged. They are well educated, well spoken and well heeled as a result of high-paying Bay Area jobs.

Who knows if Oakland programs like Operation Ceasefire, which seeks to socialize young men entrenched in criminal lives or achievement programs designed to help disadvantaged youth will produce results, but they represent the kinds of alternative remedies Oakland activists armed with a growing mountain of data — and despair — are now demanding at the top of their lungs.

The not-so-harmonic convergence of long and persistently high rates of unemployment in lower-income communities, job losses, substandard educational opportunities, continuing pressures on housing and life-threatening encounters between police officers and African American men is a stew that’s been heating up for decades — and it’s starting to boil over again.

Chip Johnson is a San Francisco Chronicle columnist. His column runs on Tuesday and Friday. E-mail: chjohnson@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @chjohnson